Book Review of The World's Religions by Huston Smith
This book is an updated version of Huston Smith's book entitled Religions of Man, originally published in 1958. The updated edition was published in 1991.
A wide variety of religions was covered, including most major religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and a very brief overview of what he called the "Primal Religions".
Smith referring to the religious traditions of the lingering "native tribes" as "primal" I found to be offensive. It seemed to imply that they are uncivilized or barbaric, which is not the case. He based the term on the fact that--according to him--they are oral traditions and those that practice "primal religions" are illiterate. He asserted that the leaders of the tribes reject writing down their traditions is because "to commit living myth and legend to lifeless script, they assume, would be to imprison it and sound its death knell" (p. 368). So says Huston Smith. I call ethnocentrism on both a social and religious scale. Perhaps it's my background as a former Wiccan. Perhaps it's the original publishing date of 1958. Either way it offends me.
My main criticism of this work is that it is very clearly slanted toward the Christian view of deity. Any general references to deity are named God, despite the use in chapters on Hinduism and "primal religions." To his credit, the chapter on Christianity was not the largest. That belonged to Buddhism, the second largest being Hinduism.
His chapters on Buddhism and Islam were very interesting and I plan on reading further on the subjects. His coverage of Hinduism was a little confusing, perhaps due to his general references to deity as God when it has no place in Hinduism. I was grateful to find a text covering Islam published before much of the current prejudice against the religion was formed. The information Smith provided was very interesting and his propensity to refer to any deity as God didn't interfere in his representation of the religion.
As a general overview, I found the book a good starting point to further study but the ethnocentrism was very frustrating as I read chapters discussing non-Abrahamic religions.
I give this book:
A wide variety of religions was covered, including most major religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and a very brief overview of what he called the "Primal Religions".
Smith referring to the religious traditions of the lingering "native tribes" as "primal" I found to be offensive. It seemed to imply that they are uncivilized or barbaric, which is not the case. He based the term on the fact that--according to him--they are oral traditions and those that practice "primal religions" are illiterate. He asserted that the leaders of the tribes reject writing down their traditions is because "to commit living myth and legend to lifeless script, they assume, would be to imprison it and sound its death knell" (p. 368). So says Huston Smith. I call ethnocentrism on both a social and religious scale. Perhaps it's my background as a former Wiccan. Perhaps it's the original publishing date of 1958. Either way it offends me.
My main criticism of this work is that it is very clearly slanted toward the Christian view of deity. Any general references to deity are named God, despite the use in chapters on Hinduism and "primal religions." To his credit, the chapter on Christianity was not the largest. That belonged to Buddhism, the second largest being Hinduism.
His chapters on Buddhism and Islam were very interesting and I plan on reading further on the subjects. His coverage of Hinduism was a little confusing, perhaps due to his general references to deity as God when it has no place in Hinduism. I was grateful to find a text covering Islam published before much of the current prejudice against the religion was formed. The information Smith provided was very interesting and his propensity to refer to any deity as God didn't interfere in his representation of the religion.
As a general overview, I found the book a good starting point to further study but the ethnocentrism was very frustrating as I read chapters discussing non-Abrahamic religions.
I give this book:
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